Interviewees

Lilly Ledbetter was the plantiff in the American employment discrimination case Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Co. She has since become a women's equality activist. Though she faced daily gender prejudice and sexual harassment, Lilly pressed onward, believing that eventually things would change. Over the next eight years, her case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where she lost again: the court ruled that she should have filed suit within 180 days of her first unequal paycheck--despite the fact that she had no way of knowing that she was being paid unfairly all those years. In a dramatic moment, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg read her dissent from the bench, urging Lilly to fight back. And fight Lilly did, becoming the namesake of Barack Obama's first official piece of legislation as president. Today, she is a tireless advocate for change, traveling the country to urge women and minorities to claim their civil rights.